And so we come once again to the fireside of the year, where the strange and lovely truth of Christmas draws us to homely things. As the years go by, and I find myself less and less at home in the time and place given to me, I cross the threshold of this feast with ever greater relief.
It is not easy to live in, this age of deceptive appearances. Behind the superficial glass and the liquid crystal screens our sorrows are undiminished. The Britain in which, for the first time in fifteen centuries, a minority of people now profess to be Christians, is no happier for its loss of faith. The old ways we tore to pieces are giving way not to the promised utopia, but to a new, sullen, disenchanted, resentful existence. Not only are things going wrong, but we struggle to agree about what has gone wrong, let alone how to make things better. Identity politics have captured many formerly trusted institutions and done great damage to their reputations, as well as confusing or upsetting many well-meaning people. And our response to the general economic strain is not, in general, an effort to build up solidarity and courage, or to provide an alternative to rapaciousness and greed, but renewed howling against our forebears and the foundations of our society. That old, gentle Britain to which we owe so much, and for which I still stand, has become our scapegoat.
This is now a Britain in which many shared things are no longer well-made or looked after; in which even those trying to do well seem unable to overcome the shoulder-shrugging culture around them. Wherever we go, any expectations of high standards seem to be frustrated. Thoroughfares and public spaces are tatty and uncared for; lifts and escalators are broken or vandalised. Or things will not be as they first appear. The Internet, for instance is full of false promises: websites will co-operate for a moment before the sentence you were reading disappears behind a salvo of pop-ups about cookie settings or newsletter subscriptions. A special offer will turn out to entail endless and spurious terms and conditions. Sorry, all our operatives are busy at the moment. Sorry, this desk is unstaffed. Sorry, this machine is out of order.
It is a Britain in which language itself is often used insincerely, too often more for the purposes of manipulation than anything else. Euphemisms and weasel words and empty slogans are so prevalent that it is a constant effort to pare speech of them, to speak or write plainly and truthfully. We often feel patronised and tricked and taken advantage of.
It is a Britain in which people of good will increasingly bear the brunt of the selfishness of those of ill-will; in which those in positions of responsibility are often unable to exercise their offices with principle and clarity; in which those who shout loudest tend to get their way. Only amongst a few is there even a sense of embarrassment at our irreverence, our arrogance, our squandering of our inheritance. It is a Britain which, I now see, is indeed mortal.
It is an old and noble nation forgetting her honour, and learning anew the barbarism that the old faith once kept at bay. There are grave misdeeds and calculatedly barbaric violence at home and abroad, an ebbing away of civility and common decency, and the unabated undermining of marriage and the family and of the Christian vision of the dignity of the human person.
But amidst all this, even as the darkness presses in, another voice, another kind of language. And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the fields... Words which, strange as they are to the ear, are not evasive, do not deceive; which have that unmistakable ring of truth:
And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid.
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.
They are words which contradict all the smirking arrogance and squalid tragedies of our time, but not as we would have supposed or dared to have hoped. Something different is going on: something strange and also sweet... Something so strange and sweet as the call of our true and longed-for home.
The darkness presses in on us, often as intensely as it pressed in on the Roman province of Judaea and on Bethlehem; pressed right down on the stable-roof and sought entry. But from within that stable it was repelled and defied, as it is repelled and defied tonight, and for ever, by light — by the one Light which, as we have often been told, the darkness cannot overpower. And our liberation is both more cosmic and more intimate than instant deliverance from hard times or a faithless epoch could ever have been: we are freed from the very enemies that blight us most: sin and the grave.
This year is the 110th anniversary of one of my favourite Christmas poems: Noel: Christmas Eve 1913, by Robert Bridges. Gerald Finzi set it to music in his Christmas cantata In Terra Pax (see above) though for the third stanza he substituted the verses quoted above, from the second chapter of Luke’s Gospel.
Noel: Christmas Eve, 1913Pax hominibus bonae voluntatis.A frosty Christmas Eve
when the stars were shining
Fared I forth alone
where westward falls the hill,
And from many a village
in the water’d valley
Distant music reach’d me
peals of bells a-ringing:
The constellated sounds
ran sprinking on earth’s floor
As the dark vault above
with stars was spangled o’er.
Then sped my thoughts to keep
that first Christmas of all
When the shepherds watching
by their folds ere the dawn
Heard music in the fields
and marvelling could not tell
Whether it were angels
or the bright stars singing.
Now blessed be the tow’rs
that crown England so fair
That stand up strong in prayer
unto God for our souls:
Blessed be their founders
(said I) an’ our country folk
Who are ringing for Christ
in the belfries to-night
With arms lifted to clutch
the rattling ropes that race
Into the dark above
and the mad romping din.
But to me heard afar
it was starry music
Angels’ song, comforting
as the comfort of Christ
When he spake tenderly
to his sorrowful flock:
The old words came to me
by the riches of time
Mellow’d and transfigured
as I stood on the hill
Heark’ning in the aspect
of th’ eternal silence.
Wishing all readers a very merry and restful Christmas.
